“It’s just meatloaf, dad,” she delivered the coup de grace, artful in its effortlessness.

Heath disassembled her slice methodically and pushed it around her plate. Her little brother, Bevan Jake, dutifully attempted enthusiasm but faded fast. I suppose comfort food only works on the uncomfortable. When kids see meatloaf on the plate they don’t see a sepia-toned totem of satisfaction and security; they wonder, usually out loud, is it meat or is it bread?

Meatloaf requires context. That’s the thing. Hoping kids will get wound up about meatloaf is like requiring they have an opinion about the direction of the economy. Perhaps it is precisely meatloaf’s role as a leading economic (and cultural) indicator that explains why generation after generation of parents force the dish on their children. After all, if you want an answer to the question ‘Where are we now?’ simply consult the current meatloaf recipe. If it calls for ground beef, pork and veal, sell your gold and buy that sexy roadster. Otherwise, keep your head down.

“Dad, no offense, but why do you love meatloaf so much?” Asked Bevan Jake, as he scrutinized an over-sized hunk stuck to the tines of his fork.

So, just as there will always be uncertainty, there will also always be meatloaf, and the over-determined meatloaf will endure as a classic parenting mistake. My dad made it. Apparently I just did too.

My dad’s meatloaf, christened The Cadillac of Meatloaf, arrived at our dinner table when I was sixteen. The Cadillac was the multi-meat iteration and it did, in fact, include veal (The recession was in the rearview mirror and Ronald Reagan was making promises about the-good-old-days). Furthermore, it was crusted with bacon. I did not appreciate the imagination or the effort. I did not notice that the herbs were not dry but fresh (a real trick in 1983). I only saw meat take the form of bread, and, understandably, I misinterpreted his zeal for hustle. I hated it.

Looking back now, dad’s Cadillac did emphasize the wrong ingredient. After all, no meatloaf is about the meat; it’s all about the loaf. I don’t care if it was practiced widely in Ancient Rome or throughout the British Empire and Colonial America, loafing meat is an unnatural act. Why bother grinding a tough cut of meat only to press it into a brick and bake it, unless you can improve it in the process? Truthfully, there are hundreds of ways to succeed, here. They all require a panade.

A panade is a mixture of starch and liquid. When employed correctly a panade keeps the meat moist and keeps it from binding up and getting too dense. It does all this while serving as the glue that gives a good loaf structure. The most common variety is made from bread (often stale) soaked in milk, but folks use everything from saltines to sea cucumbers to lighten a loaf’s load. I used gold fish crackers, egg and beef broth as the core of my panade.

As rabbit holes go, panade is not abyssal, but it’s deep enough to require a guide.

Here’s the thing: Lots of people enjoy meatloaf, only parents fantasize about it. Telling a dad that his kids aren’t going to like his creation no matter how he tricks it out wont stop him. You don’t make meatloaf for your kids so that they will enjoy it today; you make it so they will love it anon, and so they will remember what the world was like way back when. You make it well, so you can hold your head up in the interim.

Unloading the clean dinner plates from the dishwasher the next morning I was seized by the urge to sell while the kids inhaled their breakfasts. “Hey? You guys wanna take a meat loaf sandwich for lunch today?”

“Is there anything else?” asked Heath, her mouth full of dry cereal—she hates to mix it with milk.

“I bought Kaiser rolls special. Nothing like a slab of meatloaf on a Kaiser roll,” I enthused, undaunted.

“I’ll have ham, thanks dad,” said Bevan Jake apologetically. “Or even a PB and J.”

If possible, an hour before preparing the meal, grate Monterey Jack cheese and spread it on a piece of parchment paper in the freezer. This makes crushing the cheese up and distributing it evenly into the mixture very easy.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Melt butter in a non-stick medium skillet over medium-high heat, and cook celery and onions together for about 8 minutes, or until they start to caramelize. Stir regularly. Add garlic, paprika and thyme stirring constantly until fragrant, about one minute. Drop heat to low and add tomato juice, stirring constantly until the bloom of steam has subsided, no more than a minute. Set aside.

Crumble gold fish crackers and set aside. A potato masher works wonders, and what you don’t get with the masher, you can crush with your hands.

While onion mix is cooling, whisk together eggs and broth in a medium mixing bowl. Then sprinkle gelatin over surface and let dissolve (about 2 minutes). Stir in gold fish crackers crackers, parsley, soy sauce, mustard, ginger, salt, pepper and the cooled onion mixture. Remove cheese from freezer. Fold parchment paper into an envelope to protect and retain the cheese. Crumble frozen cheese until the pieces are as small as the crushed gold fish crackers, and mix into the bowl. Add ground beef in ¼ increments, this will help reduce the amount of kneading. It is crucial to thoroughly mix the ingredients without massaging the meat too much.

Use a standard bread pan as a mold. Grease pan or line it with parchment paper—if using parchment, trim paper so that it fits length-wise in pan. Don’t worry about ends, the weight of the mixture will aid removal to a greased baking sheet. Bake until the heart of the loaf measures 140 degrees, about an hour.

Note: This recipe has not been tested by the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen.